First Flight

My friend did indeed finish the sail last night, except for the grommets where the bridle attaches to the spreaders. We had meetings all day today at work, so I brought all the bits and pieces in, and built the frame in between meeting sessions. The bridle came after we stopped for lunch. By the time lunch was done I was able to walk backward with the rokkaku on the front lawn and actually watch it fly. Gary Engvalls gives very good starting points for spreader bow and bridle adjustment. It flew great the first time!

Since people more or less scattered after the meetings were done, I grabbed my gear and headed out to the park. There was no wind, but I figured I could get some time in just walking backward and tuning. I used my #90 line, figuring I wouldn't walk backward fast enough to cause problems with that. I was, of course, wrong.

Kona winds picked up slightly, but it was enough to get airborne. Then things started shifting, and finally I wound up flying in tradewinds. When I heard the trees behind me start to rustle, I knew I was in for a ride. The rokkaku went almost straight up with the increased wind speed, and the pull on the line was enough to make me take it down. A quick walk back to the car let me switch to #200 line and re-launch.

But the trades were there to stay, and were increasing in strength. I couldn't get the kite down! In desperation I wound up clipping off to my car using one of my new carabiners I got from REI (yay!) and used a second one to walk the kite down. It pulled like a truck right up until it was on the ground.

I learned a lot. Lesson 1 was that the kite may have a wide wind range, but any given tuning doesn't. If the wind changes it can develop a huge amount of pull in a very short amount of time. Lesson 2 was that the kite will fly in almost no wind at all, and since it pulls almost straight up, I figure if it can fly it can lift my rig. (I'm waiting on flying the rig until I can characterize the kite over several flying sessions in different wind conditions.)

Lesson 3 is that I'm in love with the thing. It's a fantastic kite, and I'm more than happy to add it to my kite collection.

There's a catch, however. I thought (THOUGHT!) I'd waited long enough for the CA glue to set when I installed the ferrules in the center sections of each of the spars. I wound up with the spreader's center sections attached to one or the other arm of the spreader, and I wound up with a spine that couldn't be disassembled at all. So the kite, when collapsed, is six feet long. Unless I build out another frame for it I'm not taking it on any airplanes! But it fits in my Jeep with room to spare, and should be able to go to any and all of the places I fly.

On another note I picked up an AuRiCo from Brooks. This is a neat little board that lets you convert a radio controlled KAP rig to autoKAP. A step backward? Maybe not. AuRiCo is flexible enough to handle anything from a "point straight down and bang out a shot every seconds" to "rotate 30 degrees at a time with a level horizon until you've made a full circle, then tilt down N degrees and repeat." So the AuRiCo is my gateway to flying on Mauna Kea where radios are not allowed (they interfere with the radio telescopes) to flying a rig from a boat to take pictures of whales. It should open up a whole new aspect of KAP!

So it's been a good week. I have a kite that will fly in places and conditions where my Flowforms can't, and I should get a care package from Brooks soon that should let me take pictures in places my radio rig can't operate. Can't beat it!

I'm looking forward to a good weekend of kiting and KAPing.

Tom